The Carlyle Group manages $825 million for the Alaska Permanent Fund and Alaska Governor Dunleavy appointed the daughter of Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein to the Permanent Fund board.
The Anchorage Press article states Gabrielle "Ellie" Rubenstein made her way to success with a little help from her father along the way. Really?
How many 25 year olds have the financial chops to start an Alaskan private equity fund? PensionsInvestments reported:
Her resume also includes being a co-founder of Pt Capital LLC, an Anchorage-based money manager and a founding investor of the Alaska Angel Investor Network.
Pt Capital was established in 2013 not terribly long after the younger Rubenstein had finished her three degrees (Harvard, Purdue and Indiana Universities).
Pt Capital's founding documents with the state of Alaska show her mother Alice Rogoff Rubenstein with a stake. There's no mention of any daughter.
Ellie is co-founder and CEO of Colorado private equity underwriter Manna Tree Capital. That sounds like a different state than Alaska. Fundraising and deal sourcing take quite a bit of time and travel. NewPrivateMarkets reported on Ellie's 323 day, eighteen country fundraising tour prior to the pandemic. I'm sure the Governor knows plenty about his new PF trustee and her connections to power.
Declaring conflicts of interest is so passe. Avoiding them altogether is not the way our PEU world works. The PEU Rubenstein family knows this very well as Carlyle was established to mine that very thing.
Update 8-3-22: A NYPo story on David Rubenstein mentions the family's Alaska ties from the Great Eskimo Tax Scam to Ellie's appointment to the Alaska Permanent Fund board.
Update 1-4-23: Chief Investment Officer reported:
“I’m as bearish on private equity as I have ever been in my career,” Marcus Frampton, CIO of the Alaska Permanent Fund (assets: $78 billion), told his board at a recent meeting, per news reports. “We haven’t seen the correction in private equity as we have in public markets.”
He added that PE has become increasingly expensive and that many PE asset valuations were too high and needed adjusting. The fund has been overweight PE, but he plans to reassess that allocation in coming months, perhaps reducing it by four percentage points.
Update 9-9-23: David Rubenstein took PBS viewers to Alaska for a history lesson No he didn't cover his role in the Great Eskimo Tax Scam or the many times he saved private equity's preferred "carried interest" taxation.
